The disclosure relates to a printer dryer device for drying printing substances on a printing medium, such as a printer dryer for drying an ink of an inkjet printer.
In print operations, liquid printing substances, such as inks, fixers, primers and coatings may be applied to a printing medium. The printing medium may then be dried, for example using hot air convection, infrared radiation dryers, or ultraviolet (UV) radiation dryers, or a combination of such drying techniques.
Ultraviolet curable inks may comprise polymers, oligomers, and photo initiators that are crosslinked in response to ultraviolet irradiation. Even though no significant evaporation takes place in the course of the UV irradiation and crosslinking, it is common to use the term “drying” when referring to the crosslinking of UV curable inks. These inks are very versatile, and can be printed on a large range of printing media, from paper and cardboard to plastics and even glass and ceramics.
A second type of inks are water-based inks, which are mainly used for printing on cardboard or paper. These prints can be made food-compliant, and hence can be employed to print on packages of food or beverages. Water-based inks may be dried by means of evaporation drying, such as by a combination of hot air convection and infrared or ultraviolet irradiation. They usually involve larger drying energy and/or drying times than UV curable inks.